Hi, my name is Julie Cielo and I was the oldest of four girls from rural Pennsylvania. I was obsessed with science and art growing up. I learn to forage, ferment, and clean animals after hunting. My great grandmother began speaking to me after she died. It was then I knew I had a gift, the gift of not just hearing but also with sight. I had 20/10 vision and was nicknamed Eagle Eye by my Italian immigrant grandfather that taught me so much of the resourcefulness I value today. I worked in a funeral home in high school briefly that inspired studying Mortuary in college. After an outer body experience, I realized I had the infinity I did because of a past life experience in the tombs of Eygpt but this life I was to “choose the Light.” A series of serendipitous events brought me to becoming an Intuitive Bodyworker and later a yoga instructor then eventually a Yoga Therapist. I started meditating at age 19 which has had the most significant influence on my spiritual practice than any other. After leading worldwide yoga retreats, speaking on a panel of doctors two consecutive years at a women’s conference with over 300 women on the topic of Mindfulness and Self Love, owning and operating my own healing clinic in Florida for nearly almost a decade, I moved to Los Angeles in 2012.

The transition from Florida to LA was no cake walk in the world of reinvention, but the view has made the hike to the top all the more worth it with the creation of Ferm Fatale. Many people ask how I went from a successful career in Wellness to founding a beverage company. I was sitting in my apartment in downtown Santa Monica in October of 2014 when two consultants on Skype were picking my brain and asking the right questions when I came to the discovery of my purpose. I told them that It was when I was 24 years old that I triggered a debilitating autoimmune disease by doing too many colonics while being under a large amount of stress, that I stripped all the beneficial bacteria form my gut causing Vitiligo, intestinal candida, H-pylori and a bad bacteria from Fuji. Truth is, I was trying to clean up the emotional trauma from my childhood, which is why “Living Clean” to me now has less to do with what you put into your body and more about the limited core beliefs you release about how your past defines your future. My illness inspired receiving a degree in Natural Health Studies specializing in Digestive Wellness & my healing myself through foods and supplements, mainly probiotics. I have been in remission ever since. It was during the year of my recovery in 2001 that later inspired the idea for founding Ferm Fatale because I felt left out and isolated socially when I couldn’t drink alcohol. 15 years later I started as a non-alcoholic fermented cocktail mix line that in 2015 got international attention when selected for Start Up Beverage of the Year Showdown at Bev Net Live. Shortly after, we ran out of capital. The venture had such a high high that I was experiencing a low low as I drained my retirement and lost my apartment. Feelings of shame, defeat, and loss had me reaching for material I learned when I hired a coach myself just after moving to LA and leaving my company that I built serving a long list of A-list clientele and a 22 year relationship in Florida. These perceived failures coupled with a severe family betrayal brought me to a dark place, but it was in the darkness that I found my Light yet again, which inspired the book that I am currently working on called “Live Clean Drink Dirty: Cocktails for Life & a Healthy Gut,” where I share how I overcame my own life challenges and how I have used them as opportunities for personal growth, similarly to how when you ferment you must allow something to rot for it to become life preserving. Death and loss have taught me how to live. Ferm Fatale launched January 2020 with a line of Shrub-Bucha in classic cocktail flavors being sold in Los Angeles and shipping nationwide on fermfatale.com where you can also find my podcast “We Are the Soil,”, fresh blog posts, with plans for more events in 2020 with the publishing of “LCDD.”. I hope that you love it, as it is a culmination of my life’s work to date and what I feel I was here to do.

I reside in Venice Beach, CA with my trusted sidekick Louis Laurent who is currently fighting cancer like a champ. Sign up for Culture Club and follow us on social to stay connected!